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Catch Up… Again…..

The last thing I posted was all about my Twitch channel and all sorts of projects I was excited about. Of course, life has a way of kicking me in the shins and running away giggling while I scramble to sort everything out.

While I was figuring out the Twitch stuff ( I still haven’t gotten everything figured out yet), I volunteered to do sales and marketing for my day job. It’s been suffering for a while and me trying to help was a bit of Hail Mary on the part of the owner. I don’t have much experience, but I’m the only one putting myself out there. I slacked off on commissions and marketing my painting to get the day job’s website going as well as putting together a newsletter, driving around to prospective clients and doing anything I can to get work rolling in to the place that keeps me insured.

At the same time as all of that, Gandalf, otherwise fondly known as Fuzz and ShoulderCat, fell ill suddenly. She had been my muse, supervisor, friend, and furkid for 16 years. I’m not 100% sure what got to her because the only way to diagnose was an MRI that was quoted to be about $2,500. I love my cat dearly, but the expense to put an old cat through such stress didn’t seem the kind choice for either of us. If the diagnosis was cancer or brain problems, I wouldn’t have put her through an operation anyway. Again, too much stress for an old cat. I tried steroids and antibiotics in case it was an infection. They helped to keep her eating and sustained but she was progressively getting worse, confused, moaning instead of chirping… not herself in any way. Three weeks later, she passed on her own. I’m quite sure she had a nasal lymphoma… all signs sans MRI pointed to it.

Fast forward to almost exactly a month after Fuzz passed, I meet a kitten at my vet that I fell in love with. My vet knew I didn’t want another cat right away so they invited me to play with their kittens and socialize them. Kitten therapy should be a real thing, seriously. I played with tiny cute kittens, but they weren’t the right personality. On the last day I went to play, all the kittens, their mom and another random stray had been adopted. All but one I hadn’t met yet. They let me take him out of the cage and sit in an exam room. He was so scared, but once I plopped him in my lap, he settled in, purred loudly, blinked at me and smiled. I returned the next morning to pick him up…. he was definitely my cat… and he’s been perfect for the last two weeks while still being a funny 12 week old kitten. His name is Atticus.

Now life is perfect again, right? Well, almost. The day job cut my hours again last week. I’m not sure the business will stay open for much longer. We may recover, but I’m not going to count on it. I’m pretty much working part time at this point, so I’m going to make a more full time go at commissions and perhaps other art. It’s sink or swim.

If you follow my Facebook page, you know all of this, but for those that just visit me here, that’s the rundown of my chaos. So, the plan is to keep in sight, cruise through commissions quicker so I can pick more up, paint some stuff to sell ( I have a TON to paint), and get that Twitch channel active again.

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2 thoughts on “Catch Up… Again…..”

My heart goes out to you, Jenners. I lost my little black cat, Snowball, back in January to hyper thyroidism. She was only 9 years old and I did the best I could but sadly, she slipped away despite the expensive meds and buying her the best food I could afford. I share you pain but happy you found a new “fuzzy buddy”. I hope you job situation improves, don’t forget the 4 Ps of business and good luck!!

Thank you. It was tough losing Chi last September and then Fuzz less than a year later. I didn’t see it coming. I’m sorry about Snowball. You did the best you could. Atticus is a handful. Adorable when he’s sleeping and crazy when he’s awake. Thanks for the well wishes. Things tend to work out well as long as I don’t worry too much about it. 🙂